Pacing. It's all about pacing. I'll admit I'm not a great fan of the true-to-Tolkien theme, and haven't played Sil very much, and have never gotten to the lower levels; but I love how fast the game is compared to V. It never gets slow and grindy, and it's always difficult; you feel like your character is on the run the entire time.

Obviously there are a lot of factors involved in that. I think the main ones are small levels, no teleportation, the timer, and of course the hugely improved AI. But almost every aspect helps, and integrates really nicely too. The whole thing is polished, tuned, and orchestrated to get that fast-paced feeling. It's not to my tastes in a lot of ways, but I have to admit that it's quite well designed.